reveal

[eisoj5]

First, thanks again to opheliarising for the beautiful, surreal, and wonderful By The Waves We Left Behind. It's absolutely stunning, and I'll read it again and again (and should probably read Many Waters again too).

I wrote What Keeps The Light for katie_m, a Journeyman/Sarah Connor Chronicles crossover. (It's posted at the bottom of this entry if you want to read it here.) I actually signed up to write Journeyman alone, and not SCC, but when the assignment showed up it was really cool to think that I had a couple of options, this time around. And then...I got this crazy idea that maybe I could do a crossover, where Dan time traveled to meet a couple of the SCC's main characters, while also being investigated for his abilities by someone who wanted to use them. Which I still intend to flesh out; I started working on the "sequel" yesterday. (I wrote like 500 words and then scrapped it and started over.)

I had a couple of midnight revelations about how to make the story better, as those of you on my flist know from my late-night "oh, dammit" posts; once I finally had the ending down, though, it went a lot better. Despite those small hangups, it was a lot of fun to write this; I wrote more words (um, initially it was up over 5000 words, and in the end it was 2843) on it than anything I've done in several years.

Getting the characters right, especially for Journeyman, was interesting. I used to write in XF now and then, and since there was so *much* of that show I had a particular Mulder and Scully that was easy to access in my head. With only 13 episodes of Journeyman, it was a little different, especially since I didn't actually spend time rewatching the show until, um, after I posted. But Dan was pretty amenable to being written, and so was Katie, although I'm gonna need some help with Zack in the future. So to speak. ;) Writing Sarah was much easier, especially since T2 was on one night while I was writing, and SCC still had new episodes.

I'm really pleased with the end result, and it actually garnered me the most comments I've ever gotten in three years of doing yuletide, too.

Thanks to medie and rinnaldo for looking it over!

Oh, and since I managed to hang on in the Top Commenters list, despite falling to #14, I get to submit an additional request for the NYR!




*****

Time makes more converts than reason.
-Thomas Paine

*****

There is a waitress cleaning the table next to his when Dan arrives. She doesn't look up, doesn't acknowledge that anything more unusual just occurred than another customer showing up in the middle of the night and sliding into a booth.

Which is, technically, exactly what happened.

Dan scans the restaurant. No calendar. A stack of newspapers on the counter--that'll work. He stands up to get one and knocks into the waitress, who's carrying a tray of dirty plates. Well. Who was carrying a tray of dirty plates and is now, instead, apologizing profusely about the cold coffee soaking the hem of his pants.

"It's okay--" he checks the nametag-- "Sarah." He crouches to help her clean up the mess, studies her face. She's young, probably not even in college yet, and there's something scared about her eyes that makes him say, again, "It's okay, really. I spill hot coffee on myself all the time at home."

Sarah smiles at that, and it almost makes her pretty. She picks up the last of the pieces and they both get back up. "Do you want some? Just made a fresh pot."

He smiles back. "Please. And a paper?"

"Sure thing. I'll bring you a bunch of napkins to dry off with, too."

Dan scoots back into the booth, scraping his hand on the cracked vinyl upholstery, and looks around at the few patrons: which is the one he's here to help? He tries to memorize faces, scars, birthmarks. It looks like it's the 80s. There's big hair and stonewashed jeans on more than one unfortunate person.

Sarah brings him the newspaper and a scalding hot, plain white mug. Dan wonders if the McDonald's incident has happened yet, as he hastily puts the mug down on the table, and thanks her.

It hasn't. In fact, there's still ten years to go before anyone files charges.

Dan flips through the paper quickly; once he's got the date not much else really holds his interest anymore. There's some stuff about the Soviet Union's boycott of the Olympics; the torch went through a bunch of cities on its way here--

Wait.

Dan turns the paper back to the front page and frowns.

He's in L.A.

It's going to be a very expensive cab ride home.

Sarah comes back around again. "Can I get you anything besides coffee?" Her brow furrows as she looks down at him. "Is something wrong?"

Dan waves it off. "No, I'm all right. Just a little preoccupied." He flashes another quick smile to reassure her. "Hey, it's pretty late—are those guys regulars, or what?" He nods in the general direction of the few people scattered around the restaurant.

"Nah." Sarah shakes her head. Her bangs dance with the movement, and he makes a mental note to look for pictures of Katie from the 80s when he gets home. "Just the one couple, over there in the corner. Everybody else just wanders in, like you."

He figures it's the opportune moment. "I'm Dan."

"Dan," she repeats. "I'm Sarah. Sarah Connor." A small smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. "I guess you could've gotten that from my nametag."

"So, Sarah, do you like working here?" It feels like she's probably the one. He scopes the door quickly for any junkies or other would-be late night robbers lurking around.

"It's okay. Pays my share of the rent, you know?" Sarah shrugs. "Just, um, don't order anything more complicated than a salad."

"Yeah? I'll just stick with the coffee, then."

"Okay. Yell if you want a refill." She heads off to the couple's table.

Dan leans back up against the window ledge and watches her. Nothing seems out of the ordinary; the restaurant is quiet, the street outside is deserted of cars. He figures he'll wait it out. Maybe she needs to be walked home safely?

He never makes it that far into the night, though. Somewhere around his third cup of coffee, his head starts to swim, and he just hopes Sarah will be all right--

*****

When his head clears of the blue light again, he's standing in downtown L.A., at night. On a sidewalk, thankfully, not in the middle of traffic or on a ledge or something. Dan fishes his cell phone out of his jacket and calls home.

"Where are you?" Katie sounds sleepy.

"I went to L. A., Katie." He looks around for street signs. "I'm there right now. How long was I gone?"

"Not nearly long enough for me to explain to Zack how you got to Los Angeles and back in one night, I think."

"I'll come up with something." Dan starts walking. He wiggles one arm out of his jacket, trying to shed it; it is, of course, much warmer here than in San Francisco, even on an autumn night.

"Wait, Dan--you never travel that far--L.A.?" He pictures her sitting up in bed, her face alert and anxious now.

"Yeah. Listen, Katie, I don't know if I should come home right now. I don't know what I was supposed to do—if I end up traveling again and it's just straight back here, then it's a waste of time to try to get back to you and Zack tonight." He grimaces at the words even as they leave his mouth. "I didn't mean it like that."

"I know." A faint sigh. "But, maybe, instead, we could come down there. Make it a weekend? Zack's never been to L.A., it might be fun for him to get out of the fog for a while." Her voice perks up with the idea.

"Are you sure? I don't know how long I'll be able to spend with you..."

"We'll manage something," Katie says. "Just find us a nice hotel, and we can call it a mini-vacation." She pauses. "And you can explain to me where--when--it was you went in the middle of dinner with my sister."

"Oh." Dan cringes. "You can't see it, but I'm cringing apologetically right now."

"I'll see it when we get there. Call me in the morning."

"I will," he says. "I love you."

"I love you too, Dan Vasser."

*****

When Katie and Zack get to Los Angeles, he takes them to the Page Museum in the afternoon. It's a perfect distraction for Zack, who runs straight up to the fence surrounding the mammoth sculptures half-buried in tar, leaving Dan to talk to his wife alone.

"I'm glad you came," Dan says.

"If this was a year ago, I'd tell you that you'd better have a good explanation for this," she sighs.

"I have to tell you, Katie, this time I'm just as confused as you are. I don't know how I ended up down here instead of somewhere around San Francisco, and I really don't know what I was even supposed to do." Dan takes her hand, and they start walking down the path after Zack, who is eager to see the "real mammoths" in the museum.

"Where were you?"

"1984. And I didn't do anything this time."

"Did you meet anyone?" She asks it lightly, but Dan senses she's still wondering about Livia.

"All I did was have some coffee and talk to the waitress for maybe five minutes, and then I was here. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Katie shoots him a look out of the corner of her eye. "You sound like you're disappointed."

"Well, I was expecting to have to stop a robbery or something, not just sit around and drink coffee all night," he protests.

"Did you get any names we can look up, in case you do go back again?"

"Just the waitress."

Inside the museum, Dan reads labels with Zack at each exhibit until his attention is caught by something else. They spend the longest at the skulls of the dire wolves, Zack insisting that he count every single one before moving on. Dan lets him start counting, and looks around for Katie.

She's lingering at a box filled with tar and unexcavated bones.

"It's like they're frozen in time," she says, when Dan comes up next to her. "Never going forward, never back..."

"Must be nice," he says, with a small smile, and kisses the top of her head. Then he flinches. "Uh, Katie? I think you'd better take over with Zack for a while."

"Right now?" she whispers, looking disappointed.

Dan nods. "I gotta get out of sight."

Katie kisses him quickly. "Be careful."

*****

The desert stretches out for miles. There are some sparse trees, way off in the distance, and the sun glints off of a single silver trailer a few hundred yards away.

He starts walking.

When he gets closer to the trailer, about a hundred feet away, there is an unmistakable sound; someone cocking a shotgun. The shadow of the trailer obscures the person standing in its doorway. Dan's hands go up almost of their own accord.

"Stay right where you are and don't move. Keep your hands up."

Dan does as directed. "I just need to use a phone--"

"I don't have one." The person--a woman, by the voice--steps out towards him, gun leveled squarely at his chest. She looks incredibly different; her hair's pulled back in a severe ponytail and she's dressed for a fight, but there's no one else she could be.

"You'd better turn around and start walking back to the road--"

"You're Sarah Connor," he interrupts, lowering his hands. "I met you. You were a waitress. You spilled coffee on me."

She lowers the shotgun, but only just. "I spilled coffee on a lot of people."

"My name's Dan. I know you probably don't remember me, but I remember you. You told me not to order anything harder to make than a salad." He racks his brain for the date on the newspaper she'd given him. "It was in May. May 1984."

A haunted expression crosses her face. He remembers how young and unsure she'd looked; this is a totally changed woman before him.

"A lot happened back then." She points the gun at him again. "What are you doing out here? How did you find me? Did anyone follow you?"

"It's hard to explain--"

"I've heard a lot of crazy things since you met me, Dan," Sarah says. "Start explaining."

"I will. Just--what year is this?"

Her face hardens. "What?"

"Tell me the year. How long ago did we meet?"

"It’s 1991. Who are you?"

"I’m here to help, Sarah." Dan looks around at the trailer, at the nothingness that surrounds them. "You’re not supposed to be living out here like this."

"I don’t need your help." She backs off, but slowly. "You should go."

"I can’t," he says. "Not until I know--"

"Mom?"

Sarah doesn’t turn. "John, go back inside."

Dan looks over her shoulder and sees a boy peeking around the doorframe. "You have a son?"

The blue light flares unexpectedly, and through it, he sees Sarah's face. Her expression is, strangely, suddenly one of recognition.

*****

"Dan--oh my God, where have you been?" Katie jumps off the hotel bed and hugs him, despite the dust. Zack's asleep in the other bed, snuggled up with a stuffed mammoth she must've bought him after Dan left.

"There's a desert outside L.A., did you know that?" Dan says inanely.

"I was starting to think you'd jumped home," she says. "Did you see the waitress again?"

"Yeah. Only she wasn't bringing me coffee. How many Sarah Connors do you think live around Los Angeles?"

It turns out there aren't many, to their surprise. And the one Dan's looking for is pretty damned distinct from the rest.

"Well, I guess now we know what you're supposed to change," Katie says, shaking her head as she reads the archived L.A. Times article online. "Sarah Connor's a fugitive and a terrorist."

"She blew up a building?"

"Not to mention breaking out of a mental hospital, killing her son's foster parents, destroying several million dollars' worth of property--Dan, this is really disturbing stuff." She looks up at him. "I don't want you involved with this woman."

"I don't know that I have any choice in the matter," Dan says. "It's her, it's definitely her I'm supposed to help. And maybe if I go back again, I can stop her from hurting anybody."

"What happened when you saw her this time?"

"She had a son. They were living out in the desert in a trailer, out in the middle of nowhere." He hesitates. "She pointed a gun at me and told me to get lost."

"Dan." Katie's eyes flash. "This is what I'm talking about—-the last time you did this with a crazy person, he came to our house. He shot you."

"Nothing happened. I'm fine," Dan insists. "I swear."

"I really don't like this," Katie mutters.

"Maybe this stuff got really blown out of proportion," he says. "I could call Jack and see if he'll do some research in police records about her." He grins at her, trying to reassure her. "You know how we journalists like to exaggerate, right?"

"Us TV journalists, yeah, but you boys in print are supposed to be better than that," she says dryly. "Call your brother if you want. I just don't want you getting hurt."

"I know. I love you." He kisses her cheek.

*****

"Dan, I've got to agree with Katie on this. Every police officer in California knows how dangerous Sarah Connor is. I don't think I can stress that enough. And she's crazy, did you read about that part? She was in a mental hospital." Jack sounds exasperated and freaked-out at the same time.

"Yeah, I read that." Dan rolls his eyes. He's pacing in the hallway the next morning, trying to be quiet so Katie and Zack can sleep.

"The stuff she said, Dan. It's really insane. She talked about killer robots from the future, and Judgment Day, and her son as the savior of humanity--"

"Wait a sec, Jack. Killer robots from the future?"

"Yeah." There's a pause. "Hey, just because you turned out not to be crazy, doesn't mean this woman isn't."

"I'm just saying. Maybe she just got a little confused about what happened."

"Anyway, it doesn't really matter now. She's been missing for about the last decade; we law-enforcement types just talk about her because it's a legend, you know? And it's a cautionary tale to you, Dan. If you can avoid getting mixed up with her again, I would."

"I don't know that I can," Dan says. "I keep seeing her."

"Maybe you should bring a gun, the next time you do your thing."

"Thanks, Jack."

"Don't get killed in the past. It would be really hard to explain to everybody."

"Thanks, Jack."

He turns to go back into the room, but as his hand touches the handle, everything goes blue again.

*****

It's definitely not one of the better parts of L.A. Dan looks around, trying to get his bearings, and starts walking towards the nearest store that isn't completely boarded up.

He's about to go inside, when all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He turns, and it's like an electrical storm is going off in the street before him. Lightning streaks out in all directions from the center of the storm, and Dan throws up an arm to shield his eyes. Then, as quickly as it began, the lightning stops.

In the middle of the street is a crouching, naked man.

Dan runs over to him, flipping his cell phone out to call 911. "Are you all right?" he asks, careful not to touch the man. "Sir?"

The man stands up, and turns to look at Dan. His gaze is utterly blank.

Dan backs up a step. "Uh, I think you need to get to a hospital--"

"Your clothes. Give them to me."

Dan pauses, his finger on the SEND button. He sees a girl walking towards them from the end of the street, thinks this must look really bizarre, and makes a decision. "Look, buddy, I'll give you my jacket, and--"

He never has time to figure out what else he would've given the guy, because the man simply shoves him aside, so hard that Dan crashes against the wall of the building, twenty feet away.

The girl walks past him. "Run," she says to Dan, and shoots the naked man in the chest.

Dan shouts a shocked "No!" at her in horror--and then the naked man gets up off the ground, his flesh torn away with something glinting underneath.

"Run," the girl says again, and this time, Dan does.

At the end of the street, he slams into the side of an SUV that was turning the corner. The window rolls down, and Dan's staring into the same face he's seen two days in a row, years apart.

"Sarah?"

"Dan." She reaches over and pushes the door open. "Come with me if you want to live."

*****